Does the president have much power to control a viral outbreak?

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The Washington Post

News, True Crime, Politics

4.1 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2020

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Since it was first detected on the last day of 2019, coronavirus has infected tens of thousands of people around the world and has killed more than 3,000. The outbreak has triggered unprecedented quarantines, stock market upheaval and dangerous conspiracy theories.

Most cases are mild, but health officials say the virus’s continued spread through the United States is inevitable. As the country and our health-care system prepares, a lot is still unknown.

President Trump has repeatedly sought to reassure the nation about coronavirus and organized a communications effort to downplay risk. He has appointed Vice President Pence to run a task force and tried to boost an economy faltering in response to fears.

He has also suggested closing the Southern border, falsely said a vaccine could be available very soon, falsely suggested the virus could be gone by April and disagreed with the World Health Organization’s mortality rate of 3.4 percent globally.

Trump’s overall response to this public health crisis presents a series of questions: Does the president actually have that much power when it comes to controlling a viral outbreak? What exactly has Trump done, what else can he do if he chooses, and which of these things really makes a difference?

On this episode of the “Can He Do That?” podcast, our team navigated The Post newsroom, asking expert reporters for their insights on everything from Trump’s economic response to quarantine protocols to the president’s relationship with pharmaceutical companies.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Since it was first detected on the last day of 2019, coronavirus has infected tens of thousands of people around the world and has killed more than 3,000.
0:10.0	The outbreak has triggered unprecedented quarantines.
0:13.0	The latest now on the coronavirus emergency, the quarantine on the Diamond Princess cruise ship is set to end for some passengers tomorrow, but just this morning, dozens more cases were confirmed on board.
0:24.0	Stock market upheaval.
0:26.0	A volatile session on Wall Street today, the markets were down, then they were up, then they were down again, so let's take a look.
0:31.0	We're just heading into the closed.
0:32.0	Endangerous conspiracy theories.
0:34.0	In a new report, Wired Magazine calls the coronavirus outbreak a p-tree dish for a conspiracy theories.
0:40.0	It says misinformation is part of the pun, going viral on Facebook and Twitter.
0:45.0	Most cases are mild, but health officials say the virus' continued spread through the US is inevitable.
0:52.0	As the country and our health care system prepares, a lot is still unknown.
0:57.0	President Trump has repeatedly sought to reassure the nation about coronavirus.
1:03.0	He's organized a communications effort to downplay risk.
1:06.0	He's appointed the Vice President to run a task force and tried to boost an economy faltering in response to fears.
1:12.0	He's also suggested closing the southern border.
1:15.0	Falsely said a vaccine could be available very soon.
1:18.0	Falsely suggested the virus could be gone by April.
1:21.0	And it disagreed with the World Health Organization's mortality rate of 3.4% globally.
1:26.0	Well, I think the 3.4% is really a false number now.
1:30.0	And this is just my hunch.
1:33.0	But based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people to do this, because a lot of people will have this and it's very mild.
1:40.0	Trump's overall response to this public health crisis, a response which is shifting and changing as we learn more about the virus, it got us thinking.
	...

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